In April 1960 during the school vacation Paul borrowed a neighbour's tape recorder to record the then-called "Beatals" in his family home at No.20 Forthlin Road in Liverpool. In 1961 different tapes from these sessions were given to their friends in Hamburg, Hans Walther Braun and Astrid Kirchherr. In the late 70's Frank Dostal borrowed both original tapes and spliced them together in the Teldec studio on Heussweg is Hamburg. He made three copies, one for Hans Walther Braun, one for Astrid Kirchherr and one for himself.
In April 1988 some tracks of one of these copies were released on the German LP "The Quarrymen At Home". Soon later most of the other tracks were released on a Dutch double LP called "John, Paul, George and Stu - Liverpool May 1960". The final missing vocal track "The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise" finally made it on Belmo's "Happy Christmas" single in 1991. All future CD releases were lifted from these sets which unfortunately were heavily compressed and edited. Even the official "Anthology Vol.1" double CD has the reverb and echo that was added to the tape in 1988! So it's not copied from the source tape but from the vinyl bootleg.
For the first time now you have the chance to listen to the material lifted from the original source tape. To be honest, there are still some little snippets missing but many tracks are one or two seconds longer than on any previous release and one song for the first time ever could be heard in it's entirely: "Well Darling" on all previous releases was shortened from the original 5'06" to about 2'30" or 3'30". Here it is in full length without any fades or edits!
What's left? Beware of the so-called "1969 acetate". It was made in early 1988 by the same guys who originally did "The Quarrymen At Home" LP. Now relax, float downstream and enjoy the Beatals as nature intended!
Manfred Weissleder, February 2002